If you have been vaccinated, thank you for helping to rid the world of some of the most horrible diseases. If you have not been vaccinated or you have not vaccinated your kids for any reason, I hope you enjoy being the .01% of people who still get things like diphtheria and measles. I hope you enjoy being among the .25% of people suffering from the mumps. Still not enough? I hope you enjoy being among .75% of people who still get pertussis.

Thanks to the Daily Kos for providing us with three important graphs which show how wonderful vaccines have been to our country and how many lives they have saved:

Before the middle of the last century, diseases like whooping cough, polio, measles, Haemophilus influenzae, and rubella struck hundreds of thousands of infants, children and adults in the U.S.. Thousands died every year from them. As vaccines were developed and became widely used, rates of these diseases declined until today most of them are nearly gone from our country.

Nearly everyone in the U.S. got measles before there was a vaccine, and hundreds died from it each year. Today, most doctors have never seen a case of measles.

More than 15,000 Americans died from diphtheria in 1921, before there was a vaccine. Only one case of diphtheria has been reported to CDC since 2004.

An epidemic of rubella (German measles) in 1964-65 infected 12½ million Americans, killed 2,000 babies, and caused 11,000 miscarriages. In 2012, 9 cases of rubella were reported to CDC.

Wow. We go from hundreds of dying every year from measles to most doctors never seeing a case. We went from 15,000 Americans dying a year from diphtheria to only 1 person suffering from it in the last 10 years. We went from 12 million infected individuals, 2,000 dead babies and 11,000 miscarriages from rubella to only 9 cases.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the average life expectancy at the beginning of the 20th century was 47.3 years. A century later, that number had increased to 77.85 years, due largely to the development of vaccinations and other treatments for deadly diseases. Of course, vaccines and treatments only work if they’re given, which is why many of these diseases still persist in poorer, developing countries. Despite the success of vaccines, only one of these diseases — smallpox — has been erased from the globe.

Due to vaccinations, we no longer see smallpox, and polio has almost been eradicated. No wonder vaccination is considered a modern miracle.

Vaccination is one of the greatest breakthroughs in modern medicine. No other medical intervention has done more to save lives and improve quality of life.

If you have vaccinated your kids and yourself, congratulations on helping the world to rid itself some of the most disastrous diseases. It feels pretty good being in overwhelming majority of people who won’t get these diseases because they made the right decision.